Whelk and Chiton are both classified as Mollusks, but have different diets. Whelk feed on bivalves, and barnacles, like the Acorn and Gooseneck barnacles. Chiton on the other hand, feed on brown and red algae, such as Nori Seaweed, Black Pine, and Coral Weed that are located in the same community. Starfish are classified to be an Echinoderm, and their diet consist of snails, limpets, and other types of species found in tide pools such as chitons, mussels, and barnacles. Because Whelk and Starfish share similar diets, they are considered to be in competition with one another. .
Hypothesis.
Because Starfish feed on many types of organisms in its community, I am under the impression that it is an important consumer. I HYPOTHESIZE THAT THE POPULATION OF MUSSELS WILL INCREASE DRAMATICALLY IF THE STARFISH IN THE TIDE POOL ARE REMOVED. The reason I have formed this hypotheses is the fact that the Starfish are the only predator of the Mussel in this tide pool, and by removing the Starfish population, the Mussels are in no danger because of the absence of predators.
Methods.
I HYPOTHESIZE THAT THE POPULATION OF MUSSELS WILL INCREASE DRAMATICALLY IF THE STARFISH IN THE TIDE POOL ARE REMOVED. My independent variable is the number of Starfish, which I took away from the tide pool. My dependent variable was the population of Mussels because it is directly affected by the population of Starfish. I started my experiment with Starfish present in the tide pool. I replicated this step 3 times, and reset the simulation each time. I then measured the population of Mussels at the end of each repetition. Afterwards, I depleted the Starfish population for 16 weeks and replicated 3 times for each level. The simulation was reset between each time, and I also measured the population of mussels each replication. The populations of mussels continued to grow at a constant rate, eventually to a population of around 300, throughout the experiment.